Wrestling is not a game, and wrestlers don’t play
(12/09/02)
We have all been asked it before. When’s
your next game? Who do you play tonight? Most wrestlers have been asked
these questions on a number of occasions and it should bother them.
Wrestlers don’t play, wrestlers wrestle. The word play doesn’t belong in
wrestling. The only time the word play and wrestle should be
in
the same sentence is in the WWE.
Basketball players
play! They dance
around on the court waiting for their next mistake and deciding which one
of their teammates or coaches to blame for it. Football
players play, they run around the field and make outstanding plays then
have to decide how to dance, showboat, or taunt. Now don’t
get me wrong, football is a tough sport, but ask any football player, who wrestled, and he will say wrestling is ten times as hard. Soccer players
also play, they run around the field waiting for the ball to come to them
so they can try to kick it in the goal, which if they’re lucky they might
do once every sixty minutes. Now I am not, by any means, down grading
these sports. I am just explaining the problem I have with some sports and why I think their athletes
play.
I'll tell you what athletes don’t play! Swimmers, boxers, and wrestlers don’t play. Anyone who thinks swimming
isn’t tough is full of it and should see how tough it is just to finish a
lap in the pool, let alone finish in a fast time. Boxers go through
some of the most grueling punishment of any athletes, and train harder
than most. Some athletes that will give them a run for the
hardest trained trophy are wrestlers. Some wrestlers train three times a
day, seven days a week. I know, I’m biased, but wrestling is without a
doubt the toughest sport there is. In high school one of the football
players who couldn’t understand what all they hype was about challenged me
to a match. Being outweighed by sixty pounds he was shocked to hear me
accept that challenge. After getting taken down a few times by being out
muscled, he was even more shocked when I pinned him in the first period.
I didn’t win because I was strong enough to hold him down; I won because
he gave up because he was so tired. He then agreed on how tough wrestlers
are.
John Elmer
For
Wiwrestling.com
Written for WIwrestling.com by
Freelance Columnist John Elmer
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